Kolkata: Launching a scathing attack on the Centre after a CBI team made an unsuccessfully bid to question the Kolkata Police commissioner on Sunday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah of trying to organise a coup in the state. She said the CBI’s action is politically vindictive.
“Our government arrested chit fund owners when we came to power. It is we who formed an SIT to probe the matter,” she said in a hurriedly-called press conference outside Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar’s residence.
She said she would stage a dharna in central Kolkata and followed up on the threat later.
In an unprecedented development, a number of CBI officers, who had gone to question Mr Kumar in connection with chit fund scam cases, were bundled into police jeeps, whisked to a police station and detained on Sunday.
Amidst escalating tension between Ms Banerjee and the Centre, Loudon Street in central Kolkata witnessed a showdown between the state police and the CBI.
There were conflicting reports about some CBI officers being arrested.
While the agency sources claimed that some of its men were forcibly taken away from Kumar’s Loudon Street residence and arrested, a senior police officer denied the claim and said they have been taken to the police station to check if they had the documents required for questioning Kumar.
As politics played out on the street, Ms Banerjee rushed to the residence of Mr Kumar. She had earlier extended her support to him and alleged that the BJP was “misusing power to take control of the police and all other institutions”.
